TORONTO — Scott Dixon is too polite to say so himself, so let's just say it for him: The rest of the Verizon IndyCar Series championship contenders are scre... er ... in trouble.

With his victory amid a chaotic Honda Indy Toronto on Sunday, the Chip Ganassi Racing superstar avoided the carnage that collected his fellow championship contenders and extended his points lead to 62 over the next closest competitor — reigning champion Josef Newgarden, who finished eighth Sunday.

We have: four-time champion Scott Dixon, with a 60-plus point lead, with just five races to go, heading into Mid-Ohio where Dixon has won five times. ... While it might be a bit premature to say he has his fifth championship in the bag, it's beginning to look like a sure thing.

At this point, for Newgarden or Alexander Rossi (70 points back after a ninth-place finish Sunday) or anyone else to catch him, they're going to need what might constitute a minor miracle in IndyCar racing: Dixon making a critical mistake.

Except that doesn't happen. Like ever. Think back to the TV broadcast of Sunday's Honda Indy Toronto, when NBCSN analyst Paul Tracy was absolutely stunned that while leading the race, Dixon merely grazed the wall.

"I don't think I've ever seen him do that," an astounded Tracy remarked. "You never see him make a mistake when he's in the lead."

Of course, he was right, but so was fellow NBCSN broadcaster Leigh Diffey when he replied a little while later: "When he makes a mistake, it's only a little one."

That proved to be true. Dixon claimed the lead from Newgarden after the young Penske driver hit the wall while battling understeer coming out of a early-race restart. Newgarden would recover and plummeted to mid-pack, while Dixon seized the lead and never relented. Even that little bump of the wall later in the race didn't cost him, as he was too far ahead for it to matter. He ended up winning Sunday's race by more than five seconds over runner-up Simon Pagenaud and nearly seven seconds ahead of third-place finisher Robert Wickens.

While neither of those two are in serious contention for the 2018 title — both are more than 120 points back of Dixon — each sort of chuckled during the post-race news conference when faced with the question of what they could do to slow down Dixon, who is renowned for his late-season surges.

When asked about beating Dixon in a couple of weeks at Mid-Ohio, the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports rookie laughed: "Is there a track he's not good at?"

Pagenaud, who missed the beginning part of the question groaned when he heard the next stop on the IndyCar calendar was the permanent road course in the middle of Ohio.

"Ugh," the Team Penske star said with a smile. "How many times has he won there? Too many."

As was to be expected, Dixon himself refused to begin talking about it would be like to be a five-time champion. When given the opportunity to talk about his growing — and perhaps insurmountable — championship lead, Dixon passed. Instead, he steered the conversation to how easy it would be to get too comfortable and how he refuses to let that happen.

"It's an easy trap to fall into," Dixon said after his third career victory at Toronto, his third victory of the season and the 44th of his IndyCar career. "You just got to treat it as one race weekend, go there with the mindset of being fastest in the first practice, second practice, being fastest in qualifying. Definitely can't get complacent. With the competition, it can turn so quickly. All it takes is for me to make a mistake or the car to have a mechanical, which last year at Mid-Ohio, that's where we lost the lead in the championship."

To be clear about Mid-Ohio last year, Dixon only owned a three-point lead over Helio Castroneves, a 19-point lead over Simon Pagenaud and a 23-point lead over eventual Mid-Ohio winner and series champion Newgarden.

This year, his lead is 62 — three times what it was over Newgarden last year. Still, Dixon refuses to get ahead of himself.

"It can turn very quickly, as we saw this weekend, and even last weekend at Iowa," Dixon said. "Just got to keep your head down, man, keep focus. Nothing comes easy. All of us, every single person on the team, has to put in the hard work. By the end of the year, when you look back on it, hopefully it pays off."